Of Sturgeons and Switches
by Waldo
Summary: A misdirected email sparks an overdue conversation.


**Pairing: Sheppard/Beckett** – if you don't know what that means, find out. If you decide to flame me anyway, I'm going to leave it up so people can laugh at you.  
**Warnings:** BDSM - some sub-dom stuff, discussion of spanking  
**A/N:** First line paraphrased out of Wikipedia. You really can learn the damndest thing on the internet.

**Of Sturgeons and Switches  
by Waldo.**

"Sturgeon ovaries, which are fairly large, are used for caviar. They're are beaten with switches, and then pressed through sieves, leaving the membranous and fibrous tissues in the sieve, while the eggs are collected in a tub."

Carson's head snapped up. "What in the _bloody hell_ are you talking about?"

John glanced over from his laptop. "Apparently I got another email for Jillian Shepherd. The new marine biologist."

Carson shook his head. There'd been a few instances of pull-down-address-book-foul-ups that had ended up with John getting erroneous messages. Most of them had been routine things like, "When are you going to lunch?" or "Did you get that data for me yet?"

"Well, you might want to forward that along. God knows why, but she probably wants that information for something," Carson suggested.

John punched a few buttons and sent the information on. "Beaten with switches, huh?"

Carson looked up from where he was almost done with his notes on Rodney's latest mishap. "Don't get any ideas. I'm not a fish, and I haven't any ovaries."

John waggled his eyebrows lecherously. "And I don't have a switch. But I could get one the next time I go to the mainland."

Carson blushed. "Thank you, no. That paddle you managed to carve is bad enough."

John smiled. Carson always complained when they were out of the scene… but never seriously and never when they were in it.

John made sure the email was sent and that nothing new waited for him in his in-box before closing the laptop and sliding it under the couch he sat on. "I could get some leather from the Athosians and make a flogger."

Carson coughed at the unexpected comment. His gut instinct was to tell John 'no', but he knew that if he did that, John might actually listen. And he wasn't sure he really wanted that outcome.

"You aren't saying anything," John put in from the couch.

"No," Carson said as he saved his work. He wasn't quite done, but he couldn't concentrate on Rodney's minor electrical burns any more. "I've found that it's generally safer if I don't."

"Actually," John said moving up behind him and putting his hands on Carson's shoulders, starting a gentle massage. "You find it _less safe_. Because you don't like talking about these things, so you won't tell me that you want me to make a flogger. And you don't want me to not do it, so you don't say 'no'… so you say nothing and leave it up to me."

Carson hung his head, thoroughly chagrinned. He had no idea John had him so well figured out.

"And you want to know the damnedest thing? I'd threaten to spank you for holding out on me… but that would only encourage you."

John slid his hands over Carson's shoulders and down his arms to lightly grip his wrists. "You are probably the only partner I have ever had to say this too… if you don't start talking to me, I won't spank you." He was leaning over Carson now, whispering in his ear.

Carson shivered and his eyes slid closed.

Still right at Carson's ear, John whispered, "Do you want me to try and get the materials to make a flogger? Yesterday, when I was on the mainland, one of the boys who was learning to tan showed me some of his work. He'd done a beautiful job on this brown hide. I think it was something like rabbit. Very soft. He'd also done something more like deer or cow or something stiffer. Something that would pack a little more bite. Should I take him up on his offer to trade me one of them for a chance to co-pilot a jumper?"

Carson's more reserved, public, persona warred with the mental image those words conjured up in his mind. Finally he managed to hiss. "Yes. Oh, god, please." He squirmed in his chair, trying to relieve some of the tightness in his pants.

John gently bit at the skin where Carson's shoulder and neck joined. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

Carson couldn't summon up the nerve to say 'no that wasn't… but something else is'. So he stood up and pulled John over to the bed. And showed him.


End file.
